Golden, like the sun
by Madhumalati
Summary: The other view on Those Pretty, Pretty Eyes. What do you do when your lover wears a stranger's face....or is it the other way around? Oneshot, complete. ST3, mentions of 93. Strong T: beware.


_**Part 2: Golden, like the sun**_

Sanzo's perspective on Those Pretty, Pretty Eyes.

_Fight._ That is the first thought that occurs to him when he sees _him _– Goku, not-Goku, bloodied and smiling. Not his usual bloodthirsty grin – although there is that as well – but a real smile, filled with affection and trust and deep, dark obsession. It is a look he has seen before, and it never fails to elicit that same mix of revulsion, fascination and anger.

_Hear. _That voice in his mind – Goku's, not-Goku's – it is speaking, quiet and sincere and filled with emotion and madness. It whispers to him of love, the sun, the blood is irrelevant, it says, enchanted almost, hypnotic in the depth of its disconnection from the carnage around them. Carnage he caused, blood spraying into the air around him, not letting their enemies touch him, or even come close enough for him to notice them. Beautiful efficient destruction.

_Worry. _That is the first prickle of fear in his throat, the cigarette in his hands falling to the ground. The sutra is ready, coiled and powerful on his shoulders, and there is always the gun if it fails. He steps closer, clawed hands reaching, those slit eyes puzzled and hurt by the anger he can sense in Sanzo.

How dare he? This is not……it's not him. Not Goku. Not the one he touched and held and made love to. This is an abomination, something ugly that lurks under the Goku he knows. This is not him, and he refuses to fear him. But he's shaking, shaking in anger and hate and disgust.

_Fear. _That is what sends his mind to the sutra, his last resort and trump card against what Goku can become. Fear for him – not fear of him. That is what he feels when his power uncoils and flexes, defined and focused by the chant. He looks bewildered by what Sanzo's doing – Goku's seen it a hundred times before, but he can't recognise it now (or perhaps can't accept it, as if Sanzo hadn't told him a hundred times over that he would do precisely this in this situation) but he's still, quiet, still reaching for him. Why is he so still? Why isn't he attacking Sanzo? And how, and why can he hear him in his mind?

_Blank. _That is what happens to him. For the sutra activates, flies around the waiting form gazing at him with such naked emotion – he can't bear to meet that gaze, Goku's eyes, not-Goku's eyes. Traps him, binds him……and falls away. Powerless. The sutra was at full power, but he didn't even notice. Yes, he has truly grown in power. Nothing can stop him now, not even Sanzo, and this stops his mind dead.

_Touch. _That is the next thing he feels. A clawed hand settling gently on his cheek. He flinches. That is too much like Goku. Those hands that had dripped blood a minute ago, touching him, make him sick. It rises in him, a sudden nausea that he has never felt before where Goku is concerned.

_Kiss. _That is unexpected. Quick, knowing, heartbreakingly familiar. If he closes his eyes he could believe it Goku, so sweet and gentle it is, so…warm…so…loving. His eyelids droop.

_No. _That runs through his mind and leaves his lips in the same moment. No, this is not Goku. No, he refuses to pretend like this. No, he will not participate in this violation of both their minds and bodies. No. No. No.

_Listen. _That is what he does not do, and the robe is slipped easily – with the experience of years – off Sanzo's shoulders, falling to his waist, leaving him shivering with how powerless he feels. It is ugly and exciting all at once, because his eyes are closed now, traitors that they are, and with those long fingers bent back so carefully he can simply imagine that they are – his.

_Kiss. _Yet another, a gentle one, dropped on the curve of his shoulder. Something Goku loved – no, loves to do. Goku is not gone. He will find a way to bring him back if it kills him.

_Realisation. _Dawning poisonously in his mind, following so close on the heels of his previous thought that they seem almost the same thing. This time, there is nothing to bring back. The merge is complete. They are one, Seiten Taisei and Goku, the final dissolution of the boundaries between the killer Sanzo hates and the fighter Sanzo loves is over. Both of them are gone, and some strange hybrid stands in their place. The gun clatters to the floor, slapped cautiously and gently out of his hand by those tanned fingers.

_Stripped. _That is how he feels: without his sutra, without his gun, without defense, still reeling under that horrible knowledge, slowly the arm guards are drawn off and slowly a hand and a mouth track their path to a thin gunpowder-scented hand.

_Desperate. _The feel of Goku's mind in his, desperate and hurting and loving and wanting all at once, and it drowns him in its weight and depth, and this time there is no one to pull him out of that riptide, no anchor of sanity or wise guiding father. Arms close around him, holding. Holding. And when those lips – fanged lips – return to his, he meets them measure for measure, because he can never refuse those golden eyes anything; dark and aching and strangely painless, that kiss, for the knowledge storming through him.

_Slide. _Slowly the clothes slide to the floor, quickly they slide down after them; slowly his mind slides away into how frighteningly _known_ this heat is, quickly his eyes slide close to preserve that tenuous illusion; slowly his fingers slide everywhere that he knows will remain unchanged, and quickly his eyes slide open as a talon scratches a thin white line into his back; and everything is too different, too different.

_Pain. _There is none. When he breaks away, there is no retaliation, no fury. There is no pain from the scratch on his back, which would be unnoticeable under normal circumstances, like the brush of a harsh branch as he fights his way through scrub. But there is pain in him. Pain at what he has done, has nearly done, would still be doing if he had not been so effectively reminded. Pain in Goku's eyes – like it or not, this is Goku now – leashed and controlled as it always is when he is the one who has done the hurting.

_Turn. _Away, onto his hands and knees, harsh gasping breaths, trying to understand. A gentle touch – this creature should not be gentle, doesn't he understand how hard, how very hard it is when he is? – and large golden eyes hovering before his. Goku, beside him, worried. It is too alien, too sickeningly wonderful in this welter of confusion that surrounds him.

_Turn. _Back, looking at him, trying to make him understand. Because he is not the same/is the same. Because this is wrong, this is unfaithful, and you are as loyal to what you love as you are to what you hate.

_But._ This is him. It's still him. Still Goku. Changed, warped, but still the same. What is true? He has no idea. But Goku seems to know, and he knows with the deadness of certainty that he will give in. Sooner or later, he will succumb, surrender, and that will be the end, or perhaps the beginning. But he can't look, won't look, because if he meets those eyes, golden like the sun, he will be lost forever.

A/N: It's complete. There are too many possible endings, and I wanted to stick with the horror-y version; the ambiguity of hows and whys is deliberate, but if I've been too cryptic, let me know!


End file.
